God's Word and You, Part 2

Why is it? We tremble at God's Word The reason we tremble at the Word of God is because it reveals His identity That's number one It reveals His identity Turn to Luke 23

You got to ask yourself the question, what did one thief see on the cross that the other thief didn't see? Right? he saw four things the other thief didn't see he saw four things that the crowd didn't see and he sees four things that most people completely miss the Bible says in Luke 23 verse number 39 and one of the criminals who hanged there was herbing the abuse at him saying are you not the Christ save yourself on us but the other answered and rebuking him said do you not even feel dear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? Are we indeed justly? For we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong

What did he see? He saw his righteousness The other thief didn't see it If you're in Christ, save yourself Save us See, what did he see in Christ? He saw something for him, right? He wanted something for him The other guy saw Jesus in all of his righteousness, in all of his purity, in all of us holiness We are here because we deserve to be here This man is here He didn't do anything wrong He is pure He is righteous He is holy And he is being treated unjustly We are being treated justly We deserve this punishment Don't you fear God? The first thing he saw was his righteousness

The second thing he saw was his royalty His royalty He said, verse number 42, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom Kingdom

Only a king has a kingdom, right? So he saw his royalty. this is the king man more than just the description above him this is Jesus and Nazareth king of the Jews remember me when you come into your kingdom he realized that this one next to him was not only righteous but he was royalty he was the king of the world the third thing he saw was he saw his resurrection me when you what come into your kingdom how are you going to get there if you're on the cross and you're being crucified you're going to die so how are you going to get to your kingdom you got to be raised from the dead right that's the only way you're going to get there he saw his resurrection he saw his righteousness he saw his royalty he saw his resurrection and fourthly he saw His redemption

Jesus You shall call his name Jesus For he shall save his people from their sins Remember me If you can Me. A lowly, unrighteous sinner Remember me when you come into your kingdom And Jesus said what? Today Today you shall be with me in paradise He saw what no one else saw. I wonder how many people you know see that He was saved He was born again Deathbed confession right there Right there. I guess you could call it a death cross confession

But that man was saved right there on the cross. remember Matthew's account tells us that he was joining in with the crowd and with the other thief hurling abuses at the Christ Matthew's account's very clear that both of the thieves were saying the same thing and doing the same thing to Jesus but all of a sudden one stopped all of a sudden one realized what the other didn't realize one saw Jesus for who he truly was he was the righteous king of the world who came to die for the sins of man him included so he rebuked the other sinner because he feared God and the other thing didn't I would humbly ask would you remember me when you come into your kingdom see people ask well man never said hey lord would you forgive me my sins lord would you come into my heart and let me believe in you he never said any of those things he said remember me when you come of your kingdom well the profound impact of that statement helps us see his righteousness his royalty his resurrection and his redemption that's why the guy was saved but you know what most people never see jesus they don't see him And yet the Word of God reveals to us who Jesus Christ is

And we need to come to grips with that You know, we come to church and we bring our Bibles and we open them up and reread him with the pastor or with whoever we're teaching the class or whatever we're doing or we go home and read our Bibles But we're not reading to better understand our God My whole ministry changed when I realized that my whole purpose for studying, was to get to know my God Because unless I know God, I can't accurately represent God And if I can't accurately represent God, I can't accurately speak the Word of God

And so I kind of realized that my ministry was wrapped up and getting to know my God So therefore I can help other people somehow get to know who their God is And so the reason we tremble is because we realize that the Word of God revealed, the identity of our God Let me explain to you this way Turn me to the book of Revelation, the first chapter See, now you know why it takes me so long to get to this stuff. I've told you before that the book of Revelation reveals to us Christ, unlike any of the book does The Gospels reveal us to him in his humiliation

Revelation reveals us to him in his exaltation and his exaltation glorification And yet the book of Revelation begins so that we understand the identity of the of the one who is glorified So we come to grips with Christ And the Bible says in Revelation chapter one verse number four says John to the seven churches which should be that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before his throne

And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth, to him who loves us and released us from our sins by his blood, and he has made us to be a kingdom priest to his God and Father To him be the glory and dominion forever and ever amen Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him Even so, amen. I am the alpha and the Omega says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come the Almighty

The Bible in the book of Revelation begins with helping us to understand that Jesus Christ is the reliable one He is reliable Why? Because he's called the faithful witness Over in chapter 3, verse of before, he's called faithful and true He is the reliable one, so it speaks to his christful. credibility Not only that, he is the resurrected one It speaks to his superiority The Bible says in Revelation chapter 1, it says that he is the first born of the dead What was that mean? That means that of all the people who have ever been raised from the dead, he is the preeminent one

He is the firstborn of the resurrected of the dead, meaning that he is the preeminent one of all those resurrected He is the priority of all those who have been resurrected We have a hope of the resurrection because of Jesus Christ, not because of Lazarus or Gyrus' daughter or the widow's son at Nain We had the hope of the resurrection because of Jesus Christ and his resurrection So at the outset, John says, look, this is the reliable God of the universe It speaks to his credibility He is faithful He is true He is the resurrected one

It speaks of his superior. because of all the people resurrected, this is the one that makes the difference For that is resurrection There is no resurrection And then he says, what? He, not only is the resurrected one, but he is the ruling one Because he is the ruler of the kings of the earth And then he says, knowing that, he says that this ruler is the one who loves us and released us from our sins by his blood He is the redeeming one It speaks of His majesty It speaks of his sovereignty, his superiority, his credibility And not only that, he is the returning one

He's coming again, and every eye will see him And so John begins by saying, look, this is what the book is about It's the revelation of Jesus Christ It is the apocalypsis of Jesus Christ It is the unveiling, the uncovering of Jesus Christ There is no book in the Bible that uncovers Jesus Christ like the book of Revelation If you want to know God, master the 22 chapters of Revelation Know them inside and out Because this one who was resurrected is the only one who's reliable And this one is the ruler of the kings of the earth This is the Redeemer of man

This is the one who one day is going to return again in all of his glory And you'll realize that in Chapter 1, John gets a revelation of the glorified Son of Man in verses 12 all the way down to end of the chapter And then you realize in chapters 2 and 3, the first five letters to the seven churches in Revelation all begin with a description from what was seen in Revelation. chapter 1 verses 12 down through verse number 18

John begins in Revelation chapter 2 verse number 1 to the angel of the church in Ephesus write the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands says this Well who's that? Well that's the one that John got a vision of the glorified son of man in chapter 1 about

The one who holds the seven stars in his hand are the seven messengers, the seven angels, the seven ministers, and he walks among the seven golden lambsands seven gold lamp stands represent the seven churches of Asia, meaning that Jesus Christ himself is walking in and among his church, purging the church, purifying the church, permeating the church, instilling power in the church, because that's what Jesus Christ does There are 32 different names for Christ in the book of Revelation alone. 32 different names You see, Christ wants you to know who he is

He He wants you to know that he's a faithful one He wants you know that he is the word of God In fact, over in Revelation chapter 19, what does this say about the return of Christ? It says this, Revelation 1911, and I saw heaven open and behold the white horse, and he who sat upon it is called faithful and true We saw that in Revelation chapter 1, we saw in Revelation chapter 3, because that's who he is He's faithful, he's reliable You can count on him

And so when heaven's opened up, he is faithful and true. why because he said I told you so I told you I was coming I warned you about my return so the very first thing that John sees is that he is called faithful and true and the righteousness he judges and wages war and his eyes are a flame of fire and upon his head of many diadems and he has a name written upon him which no one knows except himself and he is clothed with a robe dipped in blood and his name is called the word of God his name is called the word of God You see, that's why we tremble under the authority of the Word of God, because this is his name

See that? See, the Word communicates to us who God is And so he's called the Word In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us John tells us that the Word was God So he gives us the Word of God That's why His Word is living, inactive and powerful, because it never dies It lasts forever And the Word of God demonstrates to us, declares to us who God is And it reveals His identity And that's why we tremble under the authority of the Word of God

Because when we read it, we see God. we see him in revelation one when john saw him he fell out of his feet like a dead man but you know what the bible says in revelation one that the lord reached over and touched him and said what fear not john because god touches the fearful heart he touches it because god has a special place in his heart for those who fear his words Number two, not only does it reveal his identity, but it radiates His majesty It radiates His Majesty Now listen, this is so important This book, the Bible, shines forth the glory of Almighty God. in all of His Majesty

Now listen, remember this Did you ever wonder, this very carefully, did you ever wonder why the Bible doesn't give us any more details about the beatings of Christ and the crucifixion of Christ that it does? Did you ever ask yourself that question? You need to ask that question Do you think God wanted us to know more? about what happened? I don't think so Or can you tell us more, right? In fact, if you read the accounts in the Gospels, it tells us what happened, but it doesn't go into graphic detail, and there's a reason for that There's a reason for that

Because God wanted to make sure that when man made a decision for him, it was a volitional choice and not an emotional decision That's what. a volitional choice We know what the book of Isaiah says, how he's beaten me on recognition We know that it pleased the father to crush his son We know that We know that he said in Mark 8, Mark 9, and Mark 10 that there was, number one, the necessity of the cross in Mark chapter 8 We know in Mark chapter 9 he talked about the brutality of the cross

We also know in Mark chapter 10, 10, he spoke of, I'm sorry, in March 2nd, 9 he spoke of the certainty of the cross In March 10, he spoke of the cruelty and the brutality of the cross But you remember that every time he talked about the cross, he always talked about the victory of the cross Mark 8, Mark 9, Mark 10 We talked about his death, burial He always talked about his resurrection And every time he talked about his resurrection, every time he said, and the son of man will rise again His men missed that They missed it But he always mentioned the victory of the cross

Why? Because the emphasis is never to be on the brutality of the cross It's supposed to be on the victory of the cross So when the victory of the cross is de-emphasized and not emphasized, there's a major problem Because the Bible emphasizes the victory, not the brutality. of the cross Do you hear the subtle message I'm trying to give to you to that? I'm trying to help you understand what the word of the Lord says Why? Because the Bible radiates with His majesty, with his glory, that this one who came to die for us, he rose again It was planned by God

It was prophesied by the Old Testament saints It was preached and, excuse me, predicted by Jesus. and preached on by the apostles What? The resurrection and the glory and the majesty in his resurrection So when you tack on 14 seconds of the resurrection at the end of a 90-minute movie, you've got a major problem with the movie Because it de-emphasizes our hope Our hope is not in his death Our hope is in his resurrection Because if he didn't rise from the dead, then our hope is in vain We have no hope That is so important for us to understand Radiates with His Majesty

And so when, and if you've seen the movie, the passion, which was the biggest grossing movie in the history of movies that had an opening day on a Wednesday and ran for five consecutive days, if you've seen the movie you must beware of the problems that are in the movie when Christ gets up out of the garden and steps on Satan's head and crushes it that is not the fulfillment of Genesis 315 because Satan wasn't crushed in the garden he was crushed at Calvary and remember what did Jesus do for three days while in the tomb. 1 Peter chapter 3 verse number 17 verse number 18 we'll pick it up there for Christ also died for sins once for all the just for the unjust in order that he might bring us to God having been put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit in which also he went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison who once were disobedient when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah during construction of the ark in which a few that his eight persons were brought safely through the water

What did Christ do? He went down into the lower parts of the earth and he made a victorious proclamation that he was the resurrected one That death could not hold him That Satan could not kill him That he would live forevermore because he is the glorified son of God And that's why the word of God radiates with his majesty and with his glory And that's why we tremble under the authority of the word of God, because when we see God in all of his glory, in all of us splendor, speaking of his bigness, his beauty, his brightness, and his brilliance, it speaks of the character and nature of our God

We tremble before him in holy submission saying, God, you alone are worthy You alone are great You are worthy to be praised You see, that's how we need You know, we know, need to leave the word of God We leave saying you alone are worthy, Lord You alone are great You alone are magnificent For you alone are the majestic God of the universe. when Christ was in the garden we talked about it a couple of weeks ago that when he said I am they fell over in the movie they don't you know why because the movie does not accurately portray who he is

It doesn't radiate with His Majesty because it doesn't reveal his identity But the Word of God does, see? And that's why you tremble under the authority of the Word of God Why were these rabbis? Why were these religious leaders so mad at this guy? Why did they despise him so? It's because he was God And they didn't want him to rule over them They didn't want to be confronted on their sin And he would confront them on their sin Just by his very presence, walking into wherever they were, he would reveal their sinfulness

Because only God can do that, see? And so, we must understand that this one, the son of man, the rule of the world, is portrayed in all of his glory and all of his majesty in this book called the Word of God It radiates His majesty and its glory because it reveals His identity And that's why we tremble under the authority of the Word of God Because our hearts are broken over our sinfulness When you see him in all of us in majestic glory, you realize you are unworthy, and he alone is worthy.